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‘Koch,’ the Movie, Captures Koch, the 3-Term Mayor

Days after he lost his bid for a fourth mayoral term, in 1989, Edward I. Koch walked down a New York City sidewalk, greeting the people who had just voted him out of office.

“You’ll get a better job,” soothed a passer-by. Mr. Koch did not miss a beat: “There is no better job.”

It was a moment — pure Koch — captured in a new documentary about the city’s iconic former mayor. The film, directed by Neil Barsky, which is scheduled to be released in February, offers a candid and sprawling overview of Mr. Koch’s life and career, from his early political races in Greenwich Village to the recent renaming of the Queensboro Bridge in his honor.

It also examines the complicated relationship between the former mayor and a city that he happily says “belongs to me.”

Like the man himself, “Koch” does not sugarcoat New York City’s failures or scrimp on recounting its triumphs. And that was just fine for the film’s protagonist, who attended a screening on Wednesday evening with two generations of the city’s civic elite.

Photo

Edward I. Koch and Neil Barsky, the filmmaker, answered questions after a preview of Mr. Barsky’s movie about Mr. Koch.Credit
Tina Fineberg for The New York Times

“This is the second time I’ve seen this film; it gets better in the retelling,” Mr. Koch, wrinkled but still boisterous at 87, told the audience afterward.

Part reunion, part tribute, the event at Lincoln Center, thrown by one of Mr. Koch’s successors, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, attracted dozens of public servants — including Raymond W. Kelly, the police commissioner, and Robert M. Morgenthau, the nonagenarian former district attorney — many with close ties to Mr. Koch and the administration he oversaw from 1978 to 1989, a tumultuous, formative period in the city’s history.

“I didn’t know if it’d live to see it,” said Mr. Koch, who readily acknowledged on Wednesday that he did not expect to live for many more years. “So I am very happy.”

In the film, Mr. Koch is characteristically blunt: he described once nearly urinating on Gov. George Pataki in an elevator (Mr. Koch said it was not political — he was suffering from a medical ailment at the time), and he used a Yiddish slur to refer to Andrew M. Cuomo after Mr. Cuomo, who had just been elected governor, did not greet Mr. Koch before his victory speech.

The film addresses — but does not answer — questions some have asked about Mr. Koch’s sexual orientation.

It offers an unvarnished view of his poor relationship with African-American leaders (one calls him “an opportunist, which is worse than a racist”), and resentment from AIDS activists.

Movie Review | ‘Koch’

But Mr. Koch, who said he had no qualms about the finished product, was in buoyant spirits Wednesday, as he greeted guests and tapped on friends’ shoulders with a dapper black cane.

He was surrounded by alumni of his administration, including George Arzt, his longtime press aide; Diane Coffey, his former chief of staff; and Maureen Connelly, whom Mr. Koch appointed as the city’s first female mayoral press secretary.

“There isn’t one who isn’t doing well,” Mr. Koch said proudly of his aides.

As guests filed into the theater for the screening, Mr. Bloomberg was spotted leaning against a wall, clutching a box of one of his favorite snacks: salted popcorn. “I inhale the stuff,” he said, kernels in hand.

Ascending to a lectern, Mr. Bloomberg informed the audience that he would have loved to stay and watch the film, “but I’m not,” citing other obligations. The mayor thanked Mr. Koch for his advice over the years, which he said had always been sound. “For instance, I will never forget the time he said, ‘Limit soda sizes to 16 ounces,’ ” the current mayor said to laughs.

Mr. Bloomberg called Mr. Koch “grand and larger than life,” and he suggested that Matt Damon could play him in the Hollywood version.

“I was going to suggest George Clooney, but I’ve got to have somebody playing me,” Mr. Bloomberg added.

Correction: October 27, 2012

An article in some editions on Friday about the screening of a documentary on former Mayor Edward I. Koch misspelled the surname of one of his former press secretaries. She is Maureen Connelly, not Connolley.

A version of this article appears in print on October 26, 2012, on page A30 of the New York edition with the headline: ‘Koch,’ the Movie, Captures Koch, the 3-Term Mayor. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe